'That's men's fault,' she answered. 'They always drag it in-love, I mean.'
'And so you've gone on having one proposal after another,' said Hewet.
'I don't suppose I've had more proposals than most women,' said Evelyn, but she spoke without conviction.
'Five, six, ten?' Hewet ventured.
Evelyn seemed to intimate that perhaps ten was the right figure, but that it really was not a high one.
'I believe you're thinking me a heartless flirt,' she protested. 'But I don't care if you are. I don't care what any one thinks of me. Just because one's interested and likes to be friends with men, and talk to them as one talks to women, one's called a flirt.'
'But Miss Murgatroyd--'
'I wish you'd call me Evelyn,' she interrupted.
'After ten proposals do you honestly think that men are the same as women?'
'Honestly, honestly,--how I hate that word! It's always used by prigs,' cried Evelyn.
'Honestly I think they ought to be. That's what's so disappointing. Every time one thinks it's not going to happen, and every time it does.'
'The pursuit of Friendship,' said Hewet. 'The title of a comedy.'
'You're horrid,' she cried. 'You don't care a bit really. You might be Mr. Hirst.'
'Well,' said Hewet, 'let's consider. Let us consider--' He paused, because for the moment he could not remember what it was that they had to consider. He was far more interested in her than in her story, for as she went on speaking his numbness had disappeared, and he was conscious of a mixture of liking, pity, and distrust. 'You've promised to marry both Oliver and Perrott?' he concluded.
'Not exactly promised,' said Evelyn. 'I can't make up my mind which I really like best. Oh how I detest modern life!' she flung off. 'It must have been so much easier for the Elizabethans! I thought the other day on that mountain how I'd have liked to be one of those colonists, to cut down trees and make laws and all that, instead of fooling about with all these people who think one's just a pretty young lady. Though I'm not. I really might _do_ something.' She reflected in silence for a minute. Then she said:
'I'm afraid right down in my heart that Alfred Perrot _won't_ do. He's not strong, is he?'
'Perhaps he couldn't cut down a tree,' said Hewet. 'Have you never cared for anybody?' he asked.
'I've cared for heaps of people, but not to marry them,' she said. 'I suppose I'm too fastidious. All my life I've wanted somebody I could look up to, somebody great and big and splendid. Most men are so small.'
'What d'you mean by splendid?' Hewet asked. 'People are--nothing more.' Evelyn was puzzled.
'We don't care for people because of their qualities,' he tried to explain. 'It's just them that we care for,'--he struck a match--'just that,' he said, pointing to the flames.
'I see what you mean,' she said, 'but I don't agree. I do know why I care for people, and I think I'm hardly ever wrong. I see at once what they've got in them. Now I think you must be rather splendid; but not Mr. Hirst.'
Hewlet shook his head.
'He's not nearly so unselfish, or so sympathetic, or so big, or so understanding,' Evelyn continued.
Hewet sat silent, smoking his cigarette.
'I should hate cutting down trees,' he remarked.
'I'm not trying to flirt with you, though I suppose you think I am!' Evelyn shot out. 'I'd never have come to you if I'd thought you'd merely think odious things of me!' The tears came into her eyes.
'Do you never flirt?' he asked.
'Of course I don't,' she protested. 'Haven't I told you? I want friendship; I want to care for some one greater and nobler than I am, and if they fall in love with me it isn't my fault; I don't want it; I positively hate it.'
